While watching Live.Twit.TV as they walk around early products show at CES on January 8th 2012 they stopped and talked with Lenovo and a guy was showing a ThinkPad Tablet 1838, it’s a 10.1″ Android 3.1 tablet. It has a lot of connections and ports along with a pen tool to writ on it. Also they can be setup for business and also be managed by an IT department.

All the talk about the Kindle Fire that came out today I have been unsure if I would like one because it isn’t a full Android tablet and its only running the older 2.3 rather then 3.2 OS. But it dose look like it would be good for consuming content, I probably would want a full Android tablet, but it would work out good for something to watch videos on and to have around. So as I’m still unsure on it check out this video that Tom Merritt did an unboxing at TWiT.TV …

Google and Samsung just announced a few days ago there new Galaxy Nexus phone and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich! From the demos of new features and how slick the hardware is its making me want one of these new phones. There are some things that bugged people such as the name is backwards to the other Nexus phones out (Nexus One, Nexus S) but meeh not that big of a problem.

There was a few problems with the demos but things like voice dictation worked good but the guy tried doing it too fast and it had the first word wrong. Also the face unlock didn’t work but that could have been other things.

But as for new things such as the fonts, task switching, camera app, menu buttons, and power of the phone I can’t wait for this. You can get some info about it on the Google site ( http://www.google.com/nexus ) or check out the YouTube video in this post. Also Twit.TV did some good commentary along with the announcement video check it out at ( http://youtu.be/lD79yTFS2-0 )

They did not have full specs of the phone or what cell phone companies in the USA would have it, but it sounds like there will be one for CDMA companies (Sprint and Verizon) and a HSPA+ version (T-Mobile, ATT&T, almost every other cell company around the world) But they did say it would have a desktop dock like the Nexus One, this is something I use every day with my Nexus One still.

Can’t wait hope it won’t cost too much and I can get one on T-Mobile unless someone wants to give me a hook up 😀

Just got home from getting my car fix and I found a nice email waiting for me from Google saying that I have been invited to their music beta. They announced the service less than a month ago at the Google IO conference, and I signed up to be added when they had more space for people. I also have the new music app on my Nexus One and it’s kind of nice but I don’t listen to music I have on my phone all that much.

I did try out the Amazon Cloud Player a week or so ago and it was kind of cool to just have the app on my phone and be playing the songs I got without adding them to my phone. Before that I was trying a server app combo that worked ok but it was running all the time on my computer and wanted me to donate to keep it working after a month, it was called Subsonic and works the same why that both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player do.

So far I just clicked the link in the email (I know you shouldn’t click email links but I trust and saw who it was from,) on the page it had me accept some terms and conditions (that I didn’t read much of) and then asked if I wanted some free music, I took everything just to see what there was nothing all that amazing but whatever. Then it asked to download the Music Manager and then skip on to the player.

The Music Manager was a web installer like the Chrome installer, after a user email and password it was setup very fast. On first load it asks if you want to import music from iTunes, Windows Media, My Music, or a Other folder. Because I don’t have iTunes installed and wont install it because its garbage and none of my music is in one place I did Other folders and added a few folders to the program. It then looked at the files and after the scanning of over 1,000 files it asked if I want to upload my files. It changes over to a new window showing progress and from there you can add folders and what not.

It did have an error uploading a file and it was shown in a separate window, I wouldn’t be surprised of an error because some of my music has come from years of collecting, computer wipes, and different sources. Back on the website I was seeing new songs show up and are organized kind of nice.

So far it plays good on a computer, pages load fast and the music streams like it was playing right on the computer. As for the Android app it took a second to load up the listing in the app after setting up the account to use. When you would play a track that was not cashed to the phone a few second later it would start playing over WIFI and you can see a tinted progress bar where it shows the play progress. But it all plays very nice ill have to see how 3G works some other time.

I think that Google has it working the best, but it is almost the same thing as Amazon, one difference is that Google counts the number of tracks and Amazon counts gigabytes giving you 5GB free on Amazon and 20GB if you buy an album. Where Google gives you 20,000 tracks at this point, who knows what they will do, if it’s like Picasa they will give a usable amount then sell you a yearly amount for a good price.

If you go over to http://music.google.com it looks like they are opening it up to anyone right now for there “free for a limited time” so go check it out. Below is a few screen shots of the service. Have fun with this, it might just get me to listen to more music or ill just stick with http://di.fm 😀

A few months back I had found a development thread on XDA-Developers forum about a proxy app that runs on rooted phones, when someone asked if there was a way to have it turn on for a specific WIFI SSID, but it wasn’t part of the app. One of the posters gave some almost useful instructions on using an app called Tasker to automate the process. So I went and got Tasker and never got any where with it until a few days ago.

Since the app was running in the task bar I started messing with it before falling asleep and to my surprise they did have good help and even a few wiki sites that talked about how to set up different tasks. I tried the one that turned WIFI off when not at locations you can connect to but it wasn’t specific to where it was unless I left the GPS on all the time and that wasn’t a solution. But by playing with that one I started to understand how things worked, and tried a few of the others on the wiki.

I now have tasks that turn off the sound at night unless it is a stared contact calling, it turns off the WIFI when I dock it in a car dock, and have it setup to turn on the GPS when an app I know needs it is started and shuts off when it closes. A few other little ones make notifications reminding me to take vitamins since I’m trying to live healthier. There are a few things that I still want to setup and from everything I can see it’s all possible.

So if you’re looking for a way to have your phone automate things for you that you do often check out Tasker in the Android Market.

So Google released the Android Market on PCs in a web browser a few days ago, and from my playing around with it, it’s kind of cool. There is lots of work to be done though but it’s a start. First you can install apps from the website and have it install on your device right away. This makes it really nice so you don’t have to do all that scan a QR code or send a link to the phone or what not. Second it’s easier to find apps you may want to use, and it’s easier to see what they are with more images and even videos of the apps. But finally the bad part is it is always trying to get you to get the paid apps, which is ok but I like to find free apps and if I like them to get the paid version with more features.

Other then the fact that it wants all paid apps, I like being able to get new apps easy.

Back again with the Webluke Cast as part of the change from a list of news to a topic show this is my thoughts of CES 2011 so far as of Friday the 7th 2011 at 1:00 AM MST. I cover what I see as big including Android tablets, 3D TVs, applications for TVs, and so on.

More CES 2011 in a few days so look for that Webluke Cast soon. As always support the show and website by going to the Savings & Support link to get some deals and keep me going 😀

Firesheep! Able to login as others using cookie jacking. Google Gmail fixed by going to SSL Facebook going to take months. Fix for some WIFI is to use WPA auth. Having a password on your WIFI is also good to keep other things out.